EPTHere is the story of how I made dinner for 12 people last night...and how I almost failed.
So this began about two weeks ago, after I had made New Years dinner for them [assorted Chinese dishes], one of my friends said he wanted...steak. And so I made it my mission to deliver him, as wel as everyone else that regularly attended the weekend LAN's at Scott's house, steak.
I didn't only want to make steak though. I wanted an all out meal...like I did last time...and so the planning began. What went well with steak? Fries, of course! It's a classic! What do I normally eat when I eat steak and fries? French Onion soup. So I decided to add that to the menu. Why not add Bloomin' Onion while we're at it? Also, there was something I'd been wanting to experiment with for a while, and that was Maltodextrin [if I could find any] and its bulking capability, so I decided to do all this in one night.
So here's the lineup:
-Steak
-Bloomin' Onion
-French Fries
-French Onion Soup
-Vanilla Ice Cream with Nutella Powder
That was the plan.
Here are the recipes.
Steak:
+ Show Spoiler +
Just get a steak. Any steak.
Now, freeze it for 1 hour.
About 50 minutes into the freeze, begin heating a cast iron pan over a stove.
Once one hour has elapsed, pull the steak out of the freezer, coat liberally with salt and pepper, put sunflower oil on the pan, and immediately sear. As fast as possible. Highest heat.
Then, let the steak sit for a good five to ten minutes.
Vacuum seal and cook sous vide to 131 degrees F for medium rare.
When ready to serve, melt butter in a pan and brush over surface of steak.
Inspired by Heston Blumenthal [except I sous vide instead of baking for 24 hours]
Now, freeze it for 1 hour.
About 50 minutes into the freeze, begin heating a cast iron pan over a stove.
Once one hour has elapsed, pull the steak out of the freezer, coat liberally with salt and pepper, put sunflower oil on the pan, and immediately sear. As fast as possible. Highest heat.
Then, let the steak sit for a good five to ten minutes.
Vacuum seal and cook sous vide to 131 degrees F for medium rare.
When ready to serve, melt butter in a pan and brush over surface of steak.
Inspired by Heston Blumenthal [except I sous vide instead of baking for 24 hours]
Bloomin' Onion:
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http://allrecipes.com/recipe/blooming-onion-and-dipping-sauce/
French Fries:
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Shave potatoes
Cut to size
Simmer for 20 min
Freeze for 1 hour
Deep fry lightly to form light crust
Let sit
Deep fry high heat to form thick golden crust
Inspired by Heston Blumental "Triple Cooked Chips"
Cut to size
Simmer for 20 min
Freeze for 1 hour
Deep fry lightly to form light crust
Let sit
Deep fry high heat to form thick golden crust
Inspired by Heston Blumental "Triple Cooked Chips"
French Onion Soup:
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/french-onion-soup-recipe2/index.html
Vanilla Ice Cream w/ Nutella Powder:
+ Show Spoiler +
For every 2g of Maltodextrin, use 3g of Nutella.
Fold maltodextrin into Nutella, blend & shake until a light powdery fluff.
Top on Vanilla ice cream.
Fold maltodextrin into Nutella, blend & shake until a light powdery fluff.
Top on Vanilla ice cream.
So yeah, not that bad right?
So we go shopping, and we find a bunch of bowl's at his grandma's house that lets us store the French Onion soup basically. Was pretty legit. Everything seemed to be on sale...we got T-bone at $5 a pound! Once we'd gotten everything we needed we realized...that none of the stories carried Maltodextrin. If they did, no one knew what it was. So we decided to improvise.
Anyway, so once we got back to Scott's house, the cooking began. Scott was shaving the potatoes, and I was mixing the sauce for the Bloomin' Onion. Shortly after, we began cutting onions...but I can't cut onions since my eyes can't handle it, so his mom did it for me XD
We tossed the steaks in the freezer immediately...though I should've cut them before, since they thawed as I was cutting them :/
Then began the simmering of the fries...though it was quite a lot of fries, so we put the fire on high. Big mistake.
I began cooking two pots of French Onion soup at the same time...most of my attention was focused on that, but I had time to slice the baguettes, and to ensure that the potatoes didn't die...except they did XD. So we tossed those in the freezer.
Red wine takes FOREVER to reduce. >< I stood there for so long stirring constantly to ensure that the onions didn't stick to the pot and burn. Finally, after the beef broth was poured in, the soup was done. Then came the time to sear the steaks.
Pans don't stay hot after you toss steaks in them...so the first few were seared beautifully, but the rest were seared...but the flame wasn't hot enough, so there was a slight gradient. I regret not having a blowtorch :/
Anyway, after the steaks were seared, we had them sit for 5-10 minutes while we placed the baguettes and gruyere on top of the French onion soup, while I was slicing the Bloomin' Onion, when I remembered...I forgot to put flour in the French onion soup. It didn't matter though, that was just for the thickening, and I guess no one noticed.
Then we began battering the Bloomin' Onion, and began heating the oil...but it was done on the stove, so we had no real way of controlling the temperature of the oil. We had to guess.
Battering that thing is DIFFICULT! You have to spread the onion out, and you have to get all surfaces of it coated...something I wasn't very good at. Plus, we didn't have enough oil to cover it, so we had to flip it...a big mistake. Good thing we made two of them...the first one got kind of burnt. Though it was still good ^^
Be patient, the pictures will be at the end.
We didn't have enough room in our sous vide cooker [a big crockpot with a negative feedback rig] for all the steaks, so some of them had to bake at 175 degrees Fahrenheit. I was playing a dangerous game with overcooking the steaks. I let it sit at 175 for 20 minutes, then 150 for 30 minutes, and then turned the heat off. I got lucky; it looked medium rare. Close enough ^^
So then we served the French Onion Soup and the Bloomin' Onion first...and then we were going to prepare the fries. What we didn't know...was that there was a bunch of random crap that fell off the Bloomin' Onion that was dirtying the oil and absorbing the heat...so we wasted a bunch of time trying to fry potatoes that wouldn't fry. Finally, we strained the oil, and did it again, though by the time we finished it was about 10 pm...
But here it is!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NTuUl2g.jpg)
The good Bloomin' Onion. Notes for next time: Use a paste instead of a gel and powder. Hopefully it sticks better; maybe blanch the onion so it stays open?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5xo6Pbk.jpg)
The French Onion soup. This was my first time making it...and I got really lucky because everyone loved it :D
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AYF2D5x.jpg)
Sorry about the blur, my iPhone freaked at me. But here is the power of sous vide...a seared outside, but perfectly even medium rare on the inside...and it was one of the juiciest steaks I've ever had.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N6fxPfx.jpg)
The table shortly before everyone arrived. There's the burnt Onion XD
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Q4lRP9f.jpg)
Steak and the triple-cooked fries. The fries don't look the best because the oil was really dirty...but trust me, those were some of the best fries I've ever had. With its soft interior and crunchy exterior...Heston Blumenthal is a genius.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/p7uoyPE.jpg)
We improvised. Microwaved Nutella for a minute, then put it in a Ziploc bag and cut the bottom out to make a syrup >:D
So yeah, that was last night. It was quite satisfying and I enjoyed it. Can't wait for next time!
